Hartford - When the state lawmakers, appointed officials and city councilors emerged from the small conference room in the Legislative Office Building on Monday, it was no surprise that they hadn't found an immediate remedy for New London's economic development, now that Pfizer Inc. has announced it will leave the city in the next two years.

What was surprising - or would have been even a few months ago - was the group that wasn't even represented at that meeting: the New London Development Corp.

As New London looks for a new way forward, hoping for a tenant for Pfizer's $300 million complex and for new enthusiasm for the largely stalled redevelopment project in adjacent Fort Trumbull area, the incoming City Council will be presented with a challenge and an opportunity: the chance to seize control of the future of Fort Trumbull's economic development after more than a decade of delegating most of those concerns to the NLDC.

"I think it has always been, 'This is what NLDC says' and 'This is what the city says,' and the NLDC has won out," said Rob Pero, the longtime Republican city councilor who is expected to become mayor when the new council is seated.

But that may be changing. While Pero struck a conciliatory tone, he said he is urging the City Council to seek its own consensus on the best future approach at the Fort Trumbull site, where the NLDC, with the city's blessing and the state's funding, bought and seized homes and businesses to clear a neighborhood for redevelopment as part of the incentive package offered to Pfizer in the late 1990s.

Much of the development was never begun, and many aspects, like the planned hotel and conference center, appeared to have questionable viability even before Pfizer announced it would be pulling out.

With an opportunity ahead to craft a new direction for the Fort Trumbull project, Pero said the city's elected leaders should not cede direction to the NLDC, but instead work directly with state officials at the Department of Economic and Community Development to find a suitable use for the cleared properties.

"Let's develop our philosophy," Pero said, referring to himself and fellow members of the council. "Let's put it into some sort of formulation of a policy, and find a developer to achieve it, and then we'll try to sell them on our plan. And anyone else can present their plan, too."

NLDC still seeking developer

NLDC President Michael Joplin, in an interview last week, said the agency still considers itself the driving entity behind the project.

"We're an agent for the city, we work as an agent for the state, and until somebody wants to change that officially, that's where we are," Joplin said.

Joplin said he could support some minor alterations to the Municipal Development Plan for the area, but generally warned against adjusting the city's plans, even though the major corporate presence that guided the formation of them will soon be pulling up stakes.

"I can tell you what it was like in downtown New London in 1965," Joplin said. "And that's the kind of view you have to have going into the future. I mean, that's a historical view, that's looking back. You have to have that kind of view of economic development going forward. And you cannot and you ought not to react and want to change the plan every time there's an economic turmoil and downturn. You have to keep your eye on the ball and you have to keep on moving forward.

"If you're asking what does NLDC expect to do or want to do or is planning to do with reference to the MDP," he added, "we're not going to do anything. We're looking for a developer. We're pushing the (Coast Guard) museum. And as that moves forward, we're going to push the hotel as a development adjacent to the museum, which is symbiotic to the museum."

Not all parties are so confident in that approach, however.

The closed-door meeting in the Legislative Office Building was convened by Sen. Andrea Stillman, D-Waterford, who represents New London, to let city officials and interested lawmakers ask questions of DECD Commissioner Joan McDonald and her staff about the future of Pfizer and Fort Trumbull - including what changes in the future of the development plan the state would be willing to permit.

As the primary funder of the Fort Trumbull development, the state holds a $77 million mortgage on the development property, and therefore a de facto veto power of moves by the city or NLDC officials of which DECD does not approve.

In interviews, Pero said he thought councilors should seek guidance from the city's attorney about the flexibility they have to make minor changes within the existing Municipal Development Plan, without making moves so substantive they would reopen the plan to public approvals or to renewed legal challenges like those that have dogged the Fort Trumbull project since its announcement.

Some of the property uses called for in the plan are likely still viable, Pero said, including the 90 units of housing called for on the peninsula. But other permitted developments included in the plan, like the hotel and conference center that was once meant to thrive through a nightly room guarantee from Pfizer, could ultimately be scrapped if councilors decide they are "uses that might not materialize."

State wants to work
with city

State officials like McDonald acknowledge that Pfizer's decision to pull out of New London is a setback for the city. But they have warmed to the overtures from New London's elected officials, and said in interviews that they would welcome a chance to work with Pero and councilors to secure development of the Fort Trumbull land, provided the development doesn't undo some of the infrastructure improvements and site work that has been completed by the NLDC, using state funds.

"With new leadership in New London and the recently announced changes at Pfizer, we have a great opportunity to bring new ideas and fresh perspectives on how the city can and should shape its economic future," McDonald said Tuesday. "The department welcomes the city's ideas for progress and how we might take full advantage of the economic development potential of the site, which is in the best interest of both New London taxpayers and the state as a whole."

Others familiar with the project concurred that the most recent developments, especially Pfizer's departure, provided an opportunity to rethink parts of the planning for the Fort Trumbull area, contrary to Joplin's insistence on a "30-year view" of economic development in the city.

None of the parties suggested that the council might try to unwind the city's relationship with the NLDC entirely, as New London officials did in 2005, with a vote of no confidence in the agency that the council reversed under pressure from DECD officials worried about the legal mess such a move would have caused.

Joplin warned that some opponents calling for major changes to the plans at Fort Trumbull did not sufficiently understand the contents of the development plan, and added that recent suggestions that the razed neighborhood could be rebuilt were "dim-witted."

Opponents of the project, like the Fort Trumbull Conservancy, "sued everybody on the horizon over the content of the MDP," Joplin said. "It's already been tested in court. If you alter the thing very much, you will open the door for another endless round of nauseating, specious lawsuits, absolutely fatuous arguments to do nothing but delay, which quite frankly have contributed to the problem."

But Pero and others familiar with the discussions said city leaders would be expressly seeking to avoid making major changes that could reopen the development to more lawsuits. Instead, the city is thinking about taking the lead.

"I don't think we're in a battle," Pero said. "Pretty much, from what I see, NLDC is phasing down its people, and I think the city has to decide what it wants to do with the property down there."